On October 26, the day the Patriot Act turned 10 years old, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the U.S. Department of Justice to force the government to clarify its interpretation of Section 215 of the Act, which gives the FBI the power to demand any "tangible thing" related to an investigation (WSJ).

Today, EFF sued the Justice Department to turn over records related to the government’s secret interpretation and use of Section 215, regarding which Senator Ron Wyden, like Senator Udall, has offered ominous warnings: "When the American people find out about how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act,” said Wyden on the Senate floor in May, “they are going to be stunned and they are going to be angry.”

The lawsuits, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, seek to have the DOJ and its U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation branch turn over all information related to information requests allowed under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Two civil-liberties groups–the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union–are filing suit against the Department of Justice looking to get information on the use of orders under a controversial part of the Patriot Act.

"Google does a better job in a lot of ways than most companies about receipt of government process," the EFF's Matt Zimmerman told TechNewsWorld. Nevertheless, Google could be more transparent, he noted.

"The financial blockade is a free speech issue," Trevor Timm, activist and blogger for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told TechNewsWorld. "The government, realizing they couldn't charge WikiLeaks with a crime for publishing classified information -- because all newspapers do that -- decided to pressure private companies like Amazon, Visa, and MasterCard into banning WikiLeaks.

For these reasons, progressive groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with support from Google and Facebook and, surprisingly, members from both sides of the house, are campaigning for the act to be revised.